Archive for November, 2015

I can’t put all the cutting boards I’m working on online because some of them are gifts, but this particular one is for us so it’s safe. It’s also my first end-grain (butcher block) style board which has its own set of challenges. My original design turned out to be a bit more ambitious than my skill set would allow (you can see an illustration in this post). Trying to figure out how to get the inlay look was feasible, but I realized it was more than I could do as I ended up burning through...

Tonight, I was able to strum along to REM's "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" and "Find the River", back to back. It wasn't easy, nor completely painless, but I did it, which is an achievement. The finger is gnarly with rivulets of scar tissue on the pad, and where there's scar tissue, there's very little feeling. Immediately outside the scars it hurts. A lot. It's getting better, and being able to play La Pistola, even if only for a bit, brings me happiness. Hopefully within a few months I'll...

I was leaving work today. We have a door between the reception area & the office that is key entry only, but exiting you just push as a motion sensor unlocks it automatically. A coworker was ahead of me and realized the door was going to slam shut on me. He waited for me to open the door and profusely apologized. I said “No problem. I’ve mastered opening doors!” And proceeded to miss the door handle & run smack dab, face first into the door to the stairs.

Oiled down the cutting board today and it is complete. Tomorrow, I have all day planned for the workshop. I have to get some screws to finish up construction of my bench, then fill in all the edges with wood putty & let dry. Then sand. And sand. And sand. I have 2 more frames to build for the barn doors (those take about 30 minutes each, nothing too big). I’m trying to decide on the panel construction though. The dowels don’t work the way I had hoped & I don’t own a biscuit cutter,...

Last night my wife had most of the teachers from her preschool over to do one of those “Drink & Paint” parties where everyone gets sloshed & attempts to copy a painting. I took this wonderful opportunity to head out to the workshop & try my hand at building my first cutting board. I generally just heat up leftovers and eat at my desk for lunch, but yesterday I actually took off & headed over to the lumberyard to pick up 2 large chunks of walnut & hard maple to make a few...

I picked up all the wood yesterday (my vw GTI can haul a lot more than it looks!). Today I started on the project. First I picked the best boards for their jobs. I got 25% more wood than I needed to make sure I had excess should any ugly knots or tears show up. There were 12 1"x10"x8' and 25 1"x4"x8', all in spruce. The frame will be on both sides of the door (hence the large quantities of 1x4) I started by laying out the 1x10s, then putting the 'frame' on it to get an idea of the crossbeam...

The company I work for is expanding the office into another part of the building. Between the 2 sections, they want some barn doors. I am going to be the one building them. This is a great project for me. The construction of the doors isn’t beyond my meager skills nor does it require tooling that I do not own although part of the profits are going to purchase a nice thickness planer as well as a few things just to make life easier. I have to transport quite a bit of spruce lumber back to my...